Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Mica Tiles

I've been trying to find a way of simulating old items made of horn (medieval windows, lanterns - 'lant-horns' - , viking drinking horns for quaffing ale, hunting horns, spoons, bowls, etc). In medieval times the outside sheath of cow horn was used just like we use plastic today - it could be cut, heated and shaped, and was waterproof and semi-transparent.

My attempts to make this with polymer clay failed absolutely. No surprise there :)

In my search I've found an interesting product. This is mica, which can now be bought in nicely packaged pieces. Mica is a natural product which can be split into thinner and thinner layers, depending on what you want to do with it. The colour is darker when it is left thick. The thickest piece in this pack is almost 1mm thick, and it splits/delaminates into at least 10-12 tissue-thin layers.It has interesting natural patterns in it, which make me think it is a reasonably good old fashioned window glass. On an angle it is quite wibbly like old glass. It can look a little like brittle plastic, but it's still nicer than perfect acrylic or perspex.

This Mica Sheet pictured can be bought online in some scrapbooking websites, also on eBay.Evidently it can be cut with scissors, diecut, punched, stamped, inked, embossed, heated, gilded, painted, etched and stained to resemble coloured glass - I'll have to try this last bit . . .

Anyway, to the point - the company which makes this, USArtQuest, also makes a product called Micacraft Sheet which is reconstituted mica - and this is an orangey 'horn' colour, and it is also able to be heated and bent (you can't bend the ordinary mica sheet). So when I get around to buying some I'll let you know if it works :)

12 comments:

The orange/amber color comes from natural shellac. Mica for light fixtures was often coated with the unbleached, amber shellac. You can buy pints of it at the hardware store. You can also coat sheets of vellum with shellac and get a similar kind of cow horn look.

Christine - we had little toasters when I was small, they had a reflective layer of mica behind the elements. The 'doors' of the toaster dropped outwards, and the toast usually fell out completely, and I burned myself often :D

Glenda, we called it "isinglass" and it was used in the windows of older wood burning cast iron stoves.... being a stone it is not flammable and was clear enough so you could see the fire burning. I had no idea it was used in scrap-booking! I have some old scraps I have been saving for the perfect ancient window.... but they are fragile so I'm not sure how well they will work!

Peppercorns

mini-me

About Me

Allo! I'm Glenda, I've been making 12th-scale miniatures for a couple of years, and now returning to knitting after a 15-year gap. I loved it then and I love it now. Failures, successes - bring it on!
My Ravelry username is zspun